Saturday March 2014

SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 Korky Paul John Carey talks to Peter Kemp

Winnie’s Pirate Adventure e Unexpected Professor

10am / Corpus Christi College / £6 Ages 5 -9 10am / Christ Church: Blue Boar / £11 Have some piratical fun with Winnie the Witch and her The distinguished critic, illustrator, the one and only Korky Paul. Join him for an reviewer and broadcaster, energy-filled event of quick sketching, story book Professor John Carey, talks adventure and plenty of audience participation. to the Sunday Times chief fiction reviewer, Peter Korky Paul is one of the best-known and most popular Kemp, about his new illustrators of children’s books and is particularly memoir, The Unexpected known for the Winnie the Witch series which has Professor. Carey describes enthralled children since the first was published in the events that formed him 1987 and won the Children’s Book Award. He has – his escape from the Blitz illustrated many successful books for a lot of the big to an idyllic rural village, publishing firms. army service in Egypt and an academic career that saw him elected to Oxford’s oldest English professorship at the age of 40. He portrays the snobberies and rituals of 1950s Oxford and recounts his inspiring meetings with the likes of Auden, Graves, Larkin and Heaney. Carey is emeritus Merton Professor of English at the University of Oxford. He is well known for his provocative take on cultural issues in works such as The Intellectuals and the Masses and What Good are the Arts? He is the author of many works on English literature, including studies of Donne, Dickens and Korky Paul Thackeray and a guide to 20th-century literature, Pure Pleasure. He is chief book reviewer for The Sunday Times and has been a reviewer for the paper for 40 years.

John Carey

18 Box Office 0870 343 1001 • www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org 22 S A

Melanie King Alastair Lack T SOLD OUT U R Secrets in a dead Fish: e World D Film Oxford with Alastair Lack A

War I Spying Game Y M

10am / Christ Church: Festival Room 2 / £11 11am / Meet outside Balliol College Lodge, A

How did German Broad Street / £25 R intelligence agents use From Charley’s Aunt to the latest episode of Lewis , C H a dead fish to convey Oxford has proved a magnate for filmmakers and critical information to 2

filmgoers alike. Whether it is a Bollywood spectacular 0 their operatives? What or Harry Potter , the streets and quadrangles of Oxford 1 did an advertisement are a familiar background to numerous films. In this 4 for a dog in the Times walk, explore the city that has provided the setting for have to do with the films as diverse as The Golden Compass and A Yank at movement of British Oxford and hear about ‘film’ Oxonians such as troops into Egypt? And Rosamund Pike, Emma Watson, Kris Kristofferson and why did British officers Rowan Atkinson. The walk lasts two hours and ends at suddenly become Christ Church. suspicious of the trousers hanging on a Alastair Lack Belgian woman’s washing line? Throughout World War I, spymasters and their networks of secret agents developed many clever – and sometimes comical – methods of covert communication. Stacks of bread in a bakery window, puffs of smoke from a chimney, and even woollen pullovers were all used to pass on secret messages that were decipherable only to the well-trained eye. Melanie King will share some of these clever and long- forgotten ruses, interspersed with the stories of the spies themselves.

Melanie King

Sponsored by Presented by

Bodleian Libraries UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Festival Cultural Partner

19 SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 James Naughtie talks to Paul Blezard

e Madness of July

12 noon / Sheldonian Theatre / £15-£50 One of Britain’s best-known broadcasters and journalists James Naughtie talks about how his life and work as a political correspondent and at the helm of BBC Radio’s flagship news and current affairs programme, Today , has inspired him to write his first novel. The Madness of July is a sophisticated thriller about loyalty, survival and family rivalry during the Cold War. Naughtie has drawn on decades of experience as a political insider in both Whitehall and Washington to write the novel about Will Flemyng, a foreign office minister who has to call on his training as a former spy to deal with a political crisis brought on by a mysterious death. Naughtie was a political correspondent on The Scotsman and the Guardian before becoming a household name as presenter of Radio 4’s World at One and then BBC Radio 4’s flagship news James Naughtie programme, Today . Today is regarded by many as Britain’s most influential news programme and it regularly sets the news agenda for the day. It is often the first port of call for the powerful anxious to get their point across to its more than seven million listeners. He also presents Radio 4’s Bookclub. He is a winner of the Sony Radio Awards Radio Personality of the Year and of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer Award. Naughtie has written a number of non-fiction works including The Rivals, a portrait of Blair and Brown that became the TV feature The Deal; The Accidental American, a portrait of Blair’s relationship with George Bush; and The Making of Music . He has chaired both the Booker and Samuel Johnson judging panels.

In association with FELICITY BRYAN ASSOCIATES

20 Box Office 0870 343 1001 • www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org 22 S A

Philip reeve and Sarah McIntyre Nhean haynes de domecq T talks to Jennifer Ballantine Perera U R D

Oliver and the Seawigs rock Cakes and Other delights: A

Gibraltar’s history told Y rough Food M

12.00pm / Corpus Christi College / £6 A

Ages 6–10 12 noon / Christ Church: Hall / £15 R Set sail for adventure with Philip Reeve and Sarah C Nhean Haynes de H

McIntyre! Their book, Oliver and the Seawigs, is full of Domecq talks to publisher 2

giggly-but-dangerous monkeys, a near-sighted and library director 0 mermaid and some very big hair. There will be live- Jennifer Ballantine Perera 1 drawing, puppets, lots of laughs and big wigs. about the history of her 4 merchant family and the Reeve is the Carnegie award-winning writer of the food recipes handed down Mortal Engines quartet and Here Lies Arthur . McIntyre is through the generations an illustrator and writer who has also published picture of the Gibraltarian family. books with the likes of Giles Andreae and in her own Haynes de Domecq is a right. member of the Saccone family, one of Gibraltar’s key merchant families of the last two centuries. In Rock Cakes and Other Delights, she weaves together the story of her family and of Gibraltar with the family recipes that have been handed down through the generations. Family members began keeping recipe notebooks in the 1840s. They helped Haynes de Domecq to look back at the lives of members of the Saccone family but also to give an insight into a time of immense social and political change in Gibraltar. There will be an opportunity to taste food Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre Sponsored by made with some of the recipes in the book. Ballantine Perera is director of the Gibraltar Garrison Library and founder of Calpe Press, an independent publishing house in Gibraltar and publisher of Rock Cakes and Other Delights.

Nhean Haynes de Domecq In association with HM Government of Gibraltar

21 SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 Jim Al-Khalili rebecca Mead talks to Isabel Berwick Paradox: e Nine Greatest Enigmas e road to Middlemarch: in Physics My Life with George Eliot 12 noon / Christ Church: Blue Boar / £11 12 noon / Christ Church: Festival Room 2 / £11 Author of popular science books, broadcaster and Staff writer for The New Yorker leading theoretical phycisist Professor Jim Al-Khalili Rebecca Mead gives a passionate talks about his own favourite puzzles and conundrums account of her relationship in science, all of which have been described as with George Eliot’s paradoxes but which turn out not to be paradoxes at Middlemarch and shows how all. These conundrums include Einstein’s theories about we can live a more fulfilling time and space, the latest ideas on the quantum world, life through a deep engagement and why the fact it gets dark at night proves the with the great literary works. Mead, Universe began with a big bang. who is traveliing from the United States to be at the festival, was a young woman when she first read Khalili is a professor of theoretical physics who teaches Middlemarch and has read it many times since, each and carries out research in quantum mechanics. His time interpreting it and discovering it afresh. Mead popular science books have been translated into 20 looks at how the ambitions, dreams and attachments languages and he has presented radio and television of its characters teach us to value the limitations of programmes including the BAFTA-nominated our own lives. Chemistry: A Volatile History and The Secret Life of Chaos. Mead was born and grew up in England, leaving for the United States in her 20s. She works for The New Yorker Jim Al-Khalili magazine and has also written for the London Review of Books and the New York Times Book Review. Rebecca Mead talks to Isabel Berwick, Life and Arts Associate Editor at FT Weekend . This event is part of the American strand at this year’s festival. P h o t o :

E l i z a

Supported by b e t h

C .

Ian and Carol Sellars P r o c h n i k

Rebecca Mead

22 Box Office 0870 343 1001 • www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org 22 S A

Lionel Barber and Lucy Kellaway. Introduced by Caroline daniel T U R D

Lunch with the Ft: 52 Classic Interviews A Y M

12.30pm / Divinity School: Bodleian Library / £65 A

Join the editor of the Financial Times , Lionel Barber, and columnist Lucy R C

Kellaway for lunch in the magnificent surroundings of the Bodleian H

Library’s 15th-century Divinity School, one of the most beautiful rooms 2

in Oxford. Proceedings start with a Prosecco reception at 12.30pm, 0 followed by a two-course lunch with wine at 1.15pm and a talk and 1 conversation over coffee at 2.15pm. 4 After lunch, Barber and Kellaway will be introduced by the editor of FT Weekend , Caroline Daniel. They will remember some of the classic interviews conducted by the newspaper at a restaurant table. The people who have had Lunch with the FT since 1994 reads like an international Who’s Who. They include Angela Merkel, Martin Amis, George Soros, Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs, Angelina Jolie and Jimmy Carter. In every case, the operative word is lunch, and the reader is brought to the Lionel Barber table to listen in on unguarded conversation in a convivial atmosphere. Some of the speakers at this year’s festival will be joining today’s lunch with the FT. Barber has been editor of the Financial Times for more than eight years and has steered the paper to three Newspaper of the Year awards. Previously he was a Financial Times foreign correspondent in Washington, Brussels and New York. Kellaway is the management columnist at the Financial Times and has worked as an energy correspondent, Brussels correspondent and interviewer of business people and celebrities.

Lucy Kellaway

Bodleian Libraries UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Festival Cultural Partner

Interior of the Divinity School Photo: Greg Smolonski 23 SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 robert Muchamore and Sophie McKenzie Chaired by Geraldine Brennan Excitement and Adventure: rock War and Split Second

2pm / Sheldonian Theatre / £6-£15 Ages 12+ Two of our bestselling writers of adventure novels for young adults, Robert Muchamore and Sophie McKenzie, talk about their writing. Muchamore introduces his new novel, Rock War, and McKenzie discusses, Split Second , her action-packed new thriller. Both authors create plots full of excitement, intrigue and adventure and here is your chance to find out how it is done. Muchamore is best known for writing CHERUB and the Henderson’s Boys novels. He Robert Muchamore has published 13 CHERUB (Charles Henderson's espionage research unit B) novels and they have sold over five million copies in more than 20 different countries.

McKenzie’s debut novel, Girl Missing, won the P h o

Richard and Judy Best Kids’ Books (12+ category), t o :

The Red House Book Award and The Manchester R i n

Children’s Book Award. Her thriller, Blood Ties , won g the Red House Book Award and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Among her most recent works is the Medusa Project series about four teenagers impregnated with the Medusa gene which gives them psychic abilities. This event is chaired by Geraldine Brennan, a journalist specialising in children’s books and education who regularly reviews for the Observer and has judged several literary awards.

Sophie McKenzie

24 Box Office 0870 343 1001 • www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org 22 S A

John Banville aka Benjamin Black Ben Macintyre T talks to Lorien Kite U R D

e Black Eyed Blonde: Philby: A true Story of Cold War A

A Philip Marlowe Novel Espionage and Betrayal Y M

2pm / Corpus Christi College / £11 2pm / Christ Church: Hall / £11 A

Benjamin Black brings Raymond Chandler’s iconic Bestselling author Ben Macintyre tells the story of Kim R private eye Philip Marlowe back to life for a new Philby, the most notorious defector and Soviet mole in C H adventure on the mean streets of 1950s Bay City, history. Philby betrayed every secret of allied

California. A young, beautiful and expensively dressed operations during the early years of the Cold War, 2 0

client walks into Chandler’s office and wants him to shocking and surprising his closest colleagues. 1 find her former lover, Nico Peterson. Chandler finds Macintyre, with the help of newly released MI5 files, 4 Peterson’s disappearance is just one of a series of previously unseen family papers and help from former baffling events and finds himself tangling with one of agents tells a story of duplicity, treachery, class and Bay City’s richest families. conscience. Publication of the book in March coincides with a major two-part documentary of the same Benjamin Black is the pen name of award-winning Irish name, presented by Macintyre. writer John Banville. His novels have won numerous awards including the Allied Irish Banks fiction prize, the Macintyre is a columnist and associate editor on The American-Irish Foundation award, the James Tait Black Times. He is author of nine previous books including Memorial Prize, and the Guardian Fiction Prize. The Sea Agent Zigzag, which was shortlisted for the Costa won the 2005 Booker Prize. Banville has written eight Biography Award, and the bestselling Operation crime novels as Benjamin Black. Mincemeat and Double Cross. In conversation with Lorien Kite, books editor at Ben Macintyre FT Weekend .

Sponsored by

29 SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 rachel Johnson and Paul Blezard Bruce hood introduced by Stephen Law Saving Grace and e Lady and the e Self Illusion: Why ere is No revamp you Inside your head 4pm / Sheldonian Theatre / £11 4pm / Christ Church: Hall / £11 Editor of The Lady and author Rachel Johnson is Experimental pysychologist Bruce Hood argues that the reunited with Paul Blezard, the literary editor she was self is an illusion but one that we cannot live without. famously seen to sack in a Channel 4 fly-on-the wall He says most of us believe that we exist as a self – an documentary, The Lady and the Revamp , made shortly internal individual who resides inside our bodies, after her arrival in 2009. Things could get heated as making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free the pair lock horns over the past. Johnson produced will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self her own story of her first year as editor, A Diary of The inhabits the body – the 'me' inside me – is compelling Lady, My First Year as Editor, in which she describes and inescapable. This is how we interact as a social how she was brought in by the owner to give the animal and judge each other's actions and deeds. But traditional magazine a makeover to help it to that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat compete with modern women’s magazines. Blezard, from science as our understanding of the brain meanwhile, has written his own fictional account of advances. Rather than a single entity, the self is really a his time at the magazine, Saving Grace, which he constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create the illusion of the internal you. We only emerge describes as a comic novel in the tradition of P G as a product of those around us as part of the different Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe. The novel has been storylines we inhabit from the cot to the grave. It is an pitched on the author crowdfunding website, ever-changing character, created by the brain to Unbound, and will be published when the target provide a coherent interface between the multitude of number of pledges have been met. internal processes and the external world demands that Johnson is known for her wickedly funny novels, The require different selves. Mummy Diaries, Notting Hell and its sequel Shire Hell Hood is director of the Bristol Cognitive Development – winner of the Literary Review’s infamous Bad Sex in Centre in the experimental psychology department at Fiction Award in 2008. Blezard hosted Between the the University of Bristol. He recently published The Self Lines on Oneword radio for nine years, during which Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity. time he interviewed more than 1,600 authors. He regularly interviews authors at literary festivals at Bruce Hood home and abroad, including at the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Presented by

Paul Blezard

Rachel Johnson

30 Box Office 0870 343 1001 • www.oxfordliteraryfestival.org 22 S A

Meg rosoﬀ Adriantinniswood T talks to Nicolette Jones U R how I Write Now D rainborowes: One Family’s Quest A

to Build a New England Y M

4pm / Christ Church: Blue Boar / £6 4pm / Christ Church: Festival Room 2 / £11 A

Ages: teenagers and adults Acclaimed historian Adrian R Tinniswood follows one C

How I Live Now was published in 2004 to huge critical H mid-17th-century family acclaim and has now been made into a major feature as its members struggle 2 film. Since then, novelist Meg Rosoff has published a 0 substantial work of fiction approximately every 18 with civil war and social 1 months, each one different from the last. Hers is the upheaval in England and 4 most condensed and spectacular writing career of the help to forge a new world new millennium. Rosoff talks to the consultant director across the Atlantic in New of the festival’s children and young people’s England. The Rainborowes, programme, Nicolette Jones, about her novels, a family of shipmasters, including her latest, Picture Me Gone , and the recently soldiers, entrepreneurs filmed How I Live Now. and idealists, were at the centre of one of the most P h

Meg Rosoff o tumultuous periods in t o :

western history between Z o

e 1630 and 1660. Through their eyes, Tinniswood paints

o a picture of both the brutal Civil War and the birth of r f o l

k the New World. Tinniswood is a social and architectural historian. He is visiting fellow in heritage at Bath Spa University and the author of many books, including Pirates of Barbary and The Verneys, which was shortlisted for the BBC Sponsored by Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. P h

AdrianTinniswood o t o :

In association with e l e FELICITY BRYAN n

R o

ASSOCIATES g e r s

In association with FELICITY BRYAN ASSOCIATES

31 SAtUrdAy 22 MArCh 2014 Peter Snow robert harris talks to John Gapper

When Britain Burned the An Oﬃcer and a Spy White house 6pm / Sheldonian Theatre / £15-50 6pm / Corpus Christi College / £11 Bestselling thriller writer Robert Harris talks about his One of Britain’s best-known latest novel, An Officer and a Spy, set in late 19th- journalists and television news century France. Harris has turned to one of the most presenters Peter Snow takes a famous miscarriages of justice in history, the Dreyfus look at events that saw British affair, for the backdrop to his latest work. It is a troops enter and set fire to scandal, with a rogue intelligence agency, justice the White House in corrupted in the name of national security, and Washington DC. It was August government cover-up, that has echoes today. 1814 and the US army had Army officer Georges Picquart witnesses the just been defeated in battle convicted spy Capt Alfred Dreyfus being publicly outside Washington. The humiliated. He is promoted to the shadowy President and his wife had intelligence unit that tracked down Dreyfus but enough time to pack their begins to realise that there is something corrupt at belongings and escape before the heart of it. the British army entered. The invaders found dinner still laid Harris is author of eight bestselling novels including out on the dining table. Fatherland, Enigma, The Ghost and The Fear Index. Several have been filmed, including The Ghost Writer Snow tells of the changing (The Ghost) directed by Roman Polanski and starring fortunes of both sides in this Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall and war, which inspired the writing Olivia Williams. of the American national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner . He describes the Robert Harris talks to John Gapper, FT business colourful personalities on both sides, including Britain’s columinist and novelist. fiery Admiral Cockburn and President James Madison and his courageous and determined wife Dolley. Snow was appointed ITN diplomatic and defence correspondent in 1966 and reported from all over the world. He moved to the BBC in 1979 and was one of the first and regular presenters on Newsnight when it started in 1980. He is particularly well known for his contribution to the BBC’s election coverage. P h

Peter Snow o t o :

M u r d o

Robert Harris M a c l e o d